


Bluff Creek

by vampirecult



Category: Cryptid Fandom
Genre: Camping, Cryptids, Forests, Height Differences, Holding Hands, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Themes, Mystery, Other, Paranormal Investigators, Roadtrips, Secret Relationship, Slow Burn, Trans Character, gender neutral reader, lots of them are mentioned but only some are interacted with
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 10:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14186859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampirecult/pseuds/vampirecult
Summary: You didn't expect any of this to happen the moment you stepped into your friend's van for an expedition into the wilderness, and yet here you are, holding hands with a Sasquatch.(this is completely self indulgent and is a definite self insert, not even gonna lie. feel free to read if you share a love for bigfoot)(chapter titles come from the song "bigfoot" by cayucas - recommended listen!)





	Bluff Creek

**Author's Note:**

> anyway uhhh this first chapter is just an introduction to the situation and the characters, the next one that i'll be putting up soon is what you could call the actual beginning, so if you arent interested in the set up then feel free to skip :^)

A low branch smacked me in the face, effectively distracting me from an ongoing tangent in my head. For a nature photographer, I barely paid attention to the nature right in front of my face when I had something on my mind. Maybe I could do to take a break and focus on the job at hand.

Everything is bright orange. Tints of yellow and red are strewn around, but in general, autumn is an orange season. Pines refrain from shedding their needled coats, dotting the outlines of forests in sharp green points. Unlike maples, the pines remain dark and tall, stoic as ever even through the harshest of conditions.

Perhaps it’s a little to cliché to say autumn is my favorite season. More so when living in the Pacific Northwest, a place heavily associated with chilly weather. Most don’t realize that California is also part of this area, and yet here we are, just one part of a large expanse of varying climates and background. Humboldt County sits at the tip of it all, home to an eclectic mix of hippies, rednecks, and just about everyone in between. The most you can find to do is a weekend of either hiking, camping, or fishing. Nature stuff comes easily to us here.

Before my unfortunate collision with a tree branch, I had been thinking about the proposal my friend Tobey had presented to me the last time we met.

 _“A roadtrip!”_ His enthused voice rang in my memory.  _“Let’s hit all the cryptid hotspots in America!”_

It was entirely too idealistic considering all of our current incomes. Even with our money combined, the trip was a reach.

According to Tobey, he’d been planning this for a while, and an amassment of ‘cryptid funds’ made itself known in almost every conversation we had on the topic.

An inquisitive yet wildly radical cryptid expert was who I named as my best friend. It’s impossible to talk to the man without also talking about his life’s passion: folklore, but more fervently the _unexplained_. Our most infamous piece of town history just so happened to be the well-known Patterson-Gimlin film, taken alongside Bluff Creek a couple miles out. There’s no doubt you’ve heard or seen a mention of it before, either in a book or on TV. Not a day passes that you don’t hear about a sasquatch sighting or get numerous questions from cryptid hungry tourists passing through on their way to another destination. Tobey never tired of it, but the man worked at the notorious Bigfoot Field Museum. Even if he weren’t too hot about Bigfoot and his cryptid relatives, it was in the job description to be excited about it.

Personally? I’m always up for a good mystery. I suppose the topic of finding Bigfoot in Humboldt has become something akin to scouting for leprechauns in Ireland. It’s simply a part of our lore, and that’s just fine the way it is.

Being the only one with a functioning vehicle, our projected trip logistics were entirely up to Tobey. His orange ’75 Volkswagen bus was far from your ideal roadtrip car in terms of longevity, but it was sturdy and thankfully he was a diligent mechanic.

If he continued planning as intensely as he was now, I could call him once I returned home to see what he had so far. Best not to worry too much on it now. My head hurt from thinking too hard and having a tree slap me in the face for my carelessness.

Pulling my camera from its case, I glanced through the past dozen photographs I had taken. Displeased with most, I managed to select a choice few I could submit to the local magazine for review. My past submissions hadn’t received excellent feedback, but I wouldn’t let that stop me from submitting more.

Not that working at a dusty bookstore wasn’t _riveting_ , but photographer had always been my ideal career. Most outdoor activities were easy for me to navigate, thankfully. An aspiring nature photographer has to be well acclimated to their environment after all.

Satisfied for today, I made my way back down the wooded hills to my bike, waiting patiently out of sight behind a low growing evergreen.

 

Our cabin cottage was warm and silent when I returned, so I suspected my roommates, Nettie, was working the late shift, or napping upstairs somewhere in the loft. The dogs were home as always and bounded happily up behind me as I locked the door.

“Hey guys!” They barked in response to my greeting. Baxter was the youngest, a short and stocky pit bull with a strong attitude and playful disposition. His adoptive sister Peony was a German shepherd, originally adopted by my parents as a sort of guard dog for me, but the most aggressive thing I’d ever seen her do was sit on Baxter when he tried to get on her nerves.

“Who’s hungry?” I made my way into the kitchen just beyond the front hall and past the den. The dogs followed eagerly, nonverbally telling me they probably hadn’t eaten since I had left in the morning. As I predicted, both of their respective bowls were empty. Once I refilled the bowls and saw that they were eating, I opened the fridge to scout out some grub for myself.

Apparently, we hadn’t been to the grocery store. Not recently, anyway. The most I saw in the fridge was a gallon of milk two days from expiring, several bags of grapes that had maybe five left in each one, eggs and a half empty bag of shredded cheese. Sighing, I pulled out my phone and shot a quick text to Nettie, asking her if she could stop by the convenience store before she called her usual Uber driver that took her home every other day.

I decided it would be better to eat at least something before I went to bed, so I ended up making an egg and cheese omelet, using what we had left of the eggs and cheese.

Once I was in the den eating and watching old reruns of _M.A.S.H._ , I remembered that I needed to call Tobey. It was nearly 9 in the evening, but I knew he didn’t chance sleep until at least midnight, and after his shift ended at the museum he usually hung around even later to help clean and generally spend more time in what he called his _safe space_.

Either way you spun it, he was most definitely awake.

The phone rang only twice before I heard his familiar tenor through the speaker, _“Hey! I was just thinkin’ about you, what’s up?”_

“Are you still at the museum?”

_“…How’d you know?”_

“Just a guess. I wanted to ask about the trip.” In secret, I took pleasure letting him know just how predictable he was.

 _“Oh, our trip! I got so many plans! I was gonna wait until all three of us were together, but I know you need briefing before almost everything you do.”_ Tobey playfully chided me. He began spilling what he had so far. _“I want us to hit up Oregon first, obviously. Bigfoot is my bread n’ butter, no shade on all the other quality cryptid folk out there. While we’re there, we can camp at a number of locations where popular sasquatch sightings have occurred, and possibly talk to some people who’ve experienced sighting. For our own sake, of course. We have to be thorough as investigators.”_

“Of course. We won’t get anywhere if we don’t use the knowledge of those before us.” I was only half sarcastic but he didn’t seem to notice either way.

_“Exactly! I have some plans for other states, but the most intensive is going to be our sasquatch hunt-slash-expedition... slash exploratory learning experience. It’s many things at once.”_

“Sounds like you’ve got a pretty solid outline there.”

 _“This is my main fixation, I have to be organized or I wouldn’t be upholding the cryptid code.”_ Some part of me knew he wasn’t joking about the existence of there being a cryptid code of conduct.

“I’m not disrespecting you! I admire your intensity.” I laid back against the sofa cushions, letting Baxter jump up and lay next to me. “When are you cashing in those vacation days?”

_“Soon. I’ve talked to my manager about what I’ve been planning, and she approves. I’ve already asked for so many favors, so I kinda feel like people think I’m taking advantage of her since she’s a nice old woman, but in reality?  We’re tight. She has my back if I wanna solve unsolvable mysteries and chase my irrational dreams.”_

I had met Tobey’s manager when he started at the museum several years ago, a bright-eyed lady in her mid-sixties with a wit as sharp as a whip and just the right amount of kindness to balance it out. Tobey had been raised by his grandparents, so it was only natural he saw her as a sort of parental figure.

“It sounds good, so far. Let me know when we’re packing up, I wanna get a headstart.” I began to say goodbye then stopped. “Oh, say hi to Ms. Quinn for me! I haven’t come to visit the museum in a while.”

_“Sure thing, pally. I’ll catch you later when we can get Nettie to hang out with us.”_

We said our goodbyes, leaving me to sit with my dogs and sift through what we were about to embark on.

Not too much later, Nettie returned home, her hair wet and hanging low over her face. She was carrying two plastic bags full with food and toiletries at her sides and looked horridly downtrodden. I immediately rose to help her and closed the door while she made her way to the kitchen. A thunderous storm blew outside, the rain almost horizontal in its barrage. There would only be mud in the morning, if the rain ever stopped.

“Bad time at work?” I called, rounding the corner to help sort out the food.

“You can’t even imagine.” Her low voice spoke from behind the soggy curtain of her hair as she placed nonperishables in the cabinet. “You’d think a _plant nursery_ would be quiet, especially during the night shift. All you have to do is clean the greenhouses and water ferns, and not worry about anything until the sweet hour of 10 pm comes around.”

I blinked dumbly while Nettie paused, suspecting that things hadn’t stayed as quiet as expected.

“Long story short, we had a bear break into one of the back greenhouses and it couldn’t get out. We were all panicking and someone called animal control, even though the poor thing wasn’t hurting anything. I mean, yeah, it’s a bear, but we could have handled it.” She let out an indignant huff. “Now we have to file a report and its gonna turn into a huge thing. Tonight sucked.”

She glanced over at me while I finished tucking away all of our goods.

“How about you? This was your day off, how’d it go?” She was clearly looking to change the subject.

“Oh, y’know…” I leaned against the counter. “I rode to Cumberland trail and managed to get some good pictures. That’s about the peak of my productivity today. Afraid I can’t compare to the excitement of a bear in the greenhouse.”

“Ugh, don’t even.” She moaned. “At least now you have some new material. I’m excited to see them when they’re done!”

Her smile was infectious, so no matter how skeptical I was about my photography actually coming out okay, I grinned back at her.

“I’m sorry your day was shitty. Thanks for picking up groceries.”

“Hey, I live here too, and we both gotta eat. I’m looking out for both of us no matter _how_ shitty I feel.” She glanced around, heading out into the hallway. “Now where are my two favorite kids?”

From the other room, I heard her greet Baxter and Peony. Many murmurings of ‘good boy’ and ‘pretty girl’ ensued afterwards.

The clock on the microwave read 10: 45, a clear sign I should nod off before I got a second wind and stayed up all night.

After a quick duck into the den to say goodnight to Nettie, I headed upstairs to the loft, and sank down into my bed that sat adjacent from my housemate’s.

As sleep invaded my senses, I contemplated what lay before us in the upcoming days before the expedition and beyond. Tobey was optimistic as always. His belief in the unknown could reach unthinkable heights at times, but I would do anything to support him. In a way, his barefaced curiosity had rubbed off on me. A small part of me hoped we actually would find something out there, past the pines and into the unknown reaches of wilderness.

Only the future could prove me wrong.  

**Author's Note:**

> i made up friends for the reader i hope theyre cute ;^)


End file.
